“You have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed”

Words from The Book of Genesis (Gen. 32.28), from the classic story of struggle, Jacob wrestling with an angel, wrestling with God, it seems, and by virtue of prevailing becomes Israel, one who strives with God. It is all about the struggle, the jihad.

The word, jihad, in its proper spiritual sense, is about the struggle of the soul in relation to the will of Allah, the will of God. So, too, for Christians and Jews, there are the struggles of the soul with respect to God and our life with God in prayer and praise, in service and sacrifice. The struggle means acknowledging our own faults and shortcomings, our sins, to be blunt about it, which is only possible through the prior recognition of the goodness of God. The struggle is “to decline from sin and incline to virtue”; the struggle, quite simply, for “holiness” as Paul tells us. We “are called,” he says, “to holiness” which is the quality of God in our very being. It is a constant struggle intensified for us in the disciplines of the Lenten journey. Lent is about embracing the struggle.

But what kind of struggle? Will it be a struggle which diminishes and destroys or the struggle which dignifies and ennobles? In any event, the struggle is defining. It is nothing less than a “striv[ing] with God and with men,” as the Genesis story reminds us. The struggle, the jihad, is altogether defining. It is ultimately about character and virtue.

This is what we see in the story of the Canaanite woman. We see her perseverance. She tenaciously hangs on to what she believes about Jesus. She senses in him the presence of God in whom there is health and salvation. She seeks in him healing and grace for her daughter. She seeks it by the only means we can receive it – through the prayer for mercy and help. This is no weak and wimpy prayer; this is the prayer of a strong woman who, like Jacob become Israel, will not let go. That tenacity of spirit, that persistent willfulness about what is objectively perceived, that willingness to hold on belongs to the truth of Israel but finds its expression here in one who is from outside Israel, a non-Israelite, yet one who strives with God and breaks into the very heart of God in Jesus Christ.

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“For he himself knew what was in man”

Jesus “himself knew what was in man,” John tells us. It is a perplexing and yet an illuminating comment. It comes in John’s Gospel just after the wedding feast at Cana of Galilee, just after the casting out of the money changers in the temple at Jerusalem, just after the prediction of his death and resurrection imaged in terms of the destruction of the temple and its being raised up in three days, just after “many believed in his name when they saw the signs which he did” when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast. About those “many [who] believed in his name,” John tells us, “Jesus did not trust himself to them, because he knew all men and needed no one to bear witness of man; for he himself knew what was in man” (John 2. 24,25). Wow.

“He himself knew what was in man.” And what is in us? As the context reveals, what is in us is the spectacle of deceit and distrust. “O put not your trust in princes nor in any child of man; for there is no help in them” (Ps. 146.2), the psalmist observes and reminds us, too, that “vain is the help of man” (Ps.60.11). So what is in us? Not much. Even more, there is nothing. And even more than nothing, there is the will to nothingness in us that is a disillusioning and destructive spirit. There is nothing in and of ourselves but the will to nothingness. It is really nihilism.

This is to speak in a kind of contemporary language, the language of a kind of existentialism, the language of the despair of reason and knowledge, the language of the triumph of the will to power over the will to truth, the language of atheism. But, such a way of speaking has its biblical basis, it seems to me, in the rather dark and bleak readings for The Third Sunday in Lent upon which Jesus’ word from John provides such an important commentary. Jesus “himself knew what was in man;” it is not a pretty picture.

The remarkable epistle reading from Ephesians and remarkably even more disturbing gospel story from St. Luke speak directly to the climate of disillusionment and despair in our contemporary culture, and yet offer the real and true remedy to our fears and worries; in short, they provide the counter to the culture of nihilism. “For ye were sometimes darkness,” as Paul puts it.

WE beseech thee, Almighty God, look upon the hearty desires of thy humble servants and stretch forth the right hand of thy Majesty to be our defence against all our enemies; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The collect for today, the commemoration of George Herbert (1593-1633), Priest, Poet (source):

King of glory, king of peace, who didst call thy servant George Herbert from the pursuit of worldly honours to be a priest in the temple of his God and king: grant us also the grace to offer ourselves with singleness of heart in humble obedience to thy service; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.Amen.

The heavens are not too high, His praise may thither fly: The earth is not too low, His praises there may grow.

Let all the world in ev’ry corner sing,My God and King.

The church with psalms must shout, No door can keep them out: But above all, the heart Must bear the longest part.

Let all the world in ev’ry corner sing,My God and King.

George Herbert was born to a wealthy family in Montgomery, Wales. Educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, he appeared headed for a prominent public career, but the deaths of King James I and two patrons ended that possibility.

He chose to pursue holy orders in the Church of England and became rector at Bemerton, near Salisbury, in 1629, where he died four years later of tuberculosis. His preaching and service to church and parishioners contributed to his reputation as an exemplary pastor. He did not become known as a poet until shortly after he died, when his poetry collection The Temple was published.

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This is the second of four Lenten addresses on the theme Contemplation, Activity and Resurrection in the Passion of Christ. The first is posted here, the third here, and the fourth here.

“One Thing Needful” Mary: Love-in-Contemplation

“Mary,” Luke tells us, “sat at the Lord’s feet” in Bethany “and listened to his teaching”. He portrays the precise image of Christian contemplation. It means sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening to his word.

Contemplation in the contemporary discourse is an ambiguous word. It suggests at once something esoteric and intellectual, perhaps even gnostic, and something altogether useless and impractical. Yet, whatever one might say about the forms of spiritual hunger and the relentless demands of the practical, Christian contemplation counters such preoccupations with the self and the sensible by its strong attention to the reality of the God who has revealed himself.

Contemplation is an essential element in our Christian pilgrimage. It is the “one thing needful”, a good part which is even the better part. We need to recover our sense of its importance. It means to come to Bethany to sit with Mary at Jesus’ feet in the progress of his passion. There we may learn something of what it means to contemplate the passion of Christ.

The way of the pilgrim is the way of contemplation. Mark records Jesus’ charge to his disciples to take nothing for the journey except a staff and sandals. They are the basic gear of pilgrims. But are we really prepared to heed our Lord’s injunction to take virtually nothing? No bread, he says, no bagels, no biscuits. No bags for provisions, he says, neither Gucci nor Louis Vuitton; no money, he says, no credit cards, not even gold or platinum cards; and no cloak, he says, no extra clothing at all. Just a staff and sandals. And if that were not enough, Matthew goes further and disallows both staff and sandals – no brandy sticks, no birkenstocks! Yet, with or without staff and sandals, the point is really the same and it belongs to the character of contemplation in Christian pilgrimage. The “one thing needful” is what is really essential. With or without staff and sandals, Christ is the way of our journeying even as he is the end.

O ALMIGHTY God, who into the place of the traitor Judas didst choose thy faithful servant Matthias to be of the number of the twelve Apostles: Grant that thy Church, being alway preserved from false Apostles, may be ordered and guided by faithful and true pastors; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The name of this saint is probably an abbreviation of Mattathias, meaning “gift of Yahweh”.

Matthias was chosen to replace Judas Iscariot after Judas had betrayed Jesus and then committed suicide. In the time between Christ’s Ascension and Pentecost, the small band of disciples, numbering about 120, gathered together and Peter spoke of the necessity of selecting a twelfth apostle to replace Judas. Peter enunciated two criteria for the office of apostle: He must have been a follower of Jesus from the Baptism to the Ascension, and he must be a witness to the resurrected Lord. This meant that he had to be able to proclaim Jesus as Lord from first-hand personal experience. Two of the brothers were found to fulfill these qualifications: Matthias and Joseph called Barsabbas also called the Just. Matthias was chosen by lot. Neither of these two men is referred to by name in the four Gospels, although several early church witnesses, including Clement of Alexandria and Eusebius of Caesarea, report that Matthias was one of the seventy-two disciples.

Like the other apostles and disciples, St. Matthias received the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Since he is not mentioned later in the New Testament, nothing else is known for certain about his activities. He is said to have preached in Judaea for some time and then traveled elsewhere. Various contradictory stories about his apostolate have existed since early in church history. The tradition held by the Greek Church is that he went to Cappadocia and the area near the Caspian Sea where he was crucified at Colchis. Some also say he went to Ethiopia before Cappadocia. Another tradition holds that he was stoned to death and then beheaded at Jerusalem.

The Empress St Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, is said to have brought St Matthias’s relics to Rome c. 324, some of which were moved to the Benedictine Abbey of St Matthias, Trier, Germany, in the 11th century.

Artwork: Saint Matthias, c. 1500-15. Clear and stained glass with paint and silver stain, Victoria and Albert Museum, London (originally at St. Mary’s Church, Fairford, Gloucestershire). Photograph taken by admin, 27 September 2015.

Almighty God, we offer thanks for the faith and witness of Paul Sasaki, bishop in the Nippon Sei Ko Kai [Anglican Church in Japan], tortured and imprisoned by his government, and Philip [Lindel] Tsen, leader of the Chinese Anglican Church, arrested for his faith. We pray that all Church leaders oppressed by hostile governments may be delivered by thy mercy, and that by the power of the Holy Spirit we may be faithful to the Gospel of our Savior Jesus Christ; who livest and reignest with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

“You have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed”

Words from The Book of Genesis (Gen. 32.28), from the classic story of struggle, Jacob wrestling with an angel, wrestling with God, it seems, and by virtue of prevailing becomes Israel, one who strives with God. It is all about the struggle, the jihad.

The word, jihad, has been largely hi-jacked, if you will pardon the expression, in the contemporary discourse about Islamist terrorism and by the continuing and constant confusions in the Middle East. Yet, in its proper spiritual sense, jihad is about the struggle of the soul in relation to the will of Allah, the will of God. So, too, for Christians and Jews, there are the struggles of the soul with respect to God and our life with God in prayer and praise, in service and sacrifice. The struggle means acknowledging our own faults and shortcomings, our sins, to be blunt about it, which is only possible through the prior recognition of the goodness of God. The struggle is “to decline from sin and incline to virtue”; the struggle, quite simply, for “holiness” as Paul tells us in this morning’s epistle. We “are called”, he says, “to holiness” which is the quality of God in our very being. It is a constant struggle intensified for us in the disciplines of the Lenten journey. Lent is about embracing the struggle.

But what kind of struggle? Will it be a struggle which diminishes and destroys or the struggle which dignifies and ennobles? In any event, the struggle is defining. It is nothing less than a “striv[ing] with God and with men,” as the Genesis story reminds us. The struggle, the jihad, is altogether defining. It is ultimately about character and virtue.

This is what we see in the story of the Canaanite woman. We see her perseverance. She tenaciously hangs on to what she believes about Jesus. She senses in him the presence of God in whom there is health and salvation. She seeks in him healing and grace for her daughter. She seeks it by the only means we can receive it – through the prayer for mercy and help. This is no weak and wimpy prayer; this is the prayer of a strong woman who, like Jacob become Israel, will not let go. That tenacity of spirit, that persistent willfulness about what is objectively perceived, that willingness to hold on belongs to the truth of Israel but finds its expression here in one who is from outside Israel, a non-Israelite, yet one who strives with God and breaks into the very heart of God in Jesus Christ.